The Largest Study Ever of Libertarian Psychology

We’ve been deluged in recent years with research on the psychology (and brain structure) of liberals and conservatives. But very little is known about libertarians — an extremely important group in American politics that is not at home in either political party.

At YourMorals.org we have now addressed the gap. Unlike most surveys, which force everyone to place themselves on a Left-Right scale, we have always allowed our visitors to choose “libertarian” as an option. Given our unique web platform, where people register and then take multiple surveys, we have amassed what we believe is the largest and most detailed dataset in the world on the personality traits of libertarians (as well as of liberals and conservatives).

In a project led by Ravi Iyer, we analyzed data from nearly twelve thousand self-described libertarians, and compared their responses to those of 21,000 conservatives and 97,000 liberals. The paper was just published last week in PLoS ONE. The findings largely confirm what libertarians have long said about themselves, but they also shed light on why some people and not others end up finding libertarian ideas appealing. Here are three of the major findings:

1) On moral values: Libertarians match liberals in placing a relatively low value on the moral foundations of loyalty, authority, and sanctity (e.g., they’re not so concerned about sexual issues and flag burning), but they join conservatives in scoring lower than liberals on the care and fairness foundations (where fairness is mostly equality, not proportionality; e.g., they don’t want a welfare state and heavy handed measures to enforce equality). This is why libertarians can’t be placed on the spectrum from left to right: they have a unique pattern that is in no sense just somewhere in the middle. They really do put liberty above all other values.

2) On reasoning and emotions: Libertarians have the most “masculine” style, liberals the most “feminine.” We used Simon Baron-Cohen’s measures of “empathizing” (on which women tend to score higher) and “systemizing”, which refers to “the drive to analyze the variables in a system, and to derive the underlying rules that govern the behavior of the system.” Men tend to score higher on this variable. Libertarians score the lowest of the three groups on empathizing, and highest of the three groups on systemizing. (Note that we did this and all other analyses for males and females separately.) On this and other measures, libertarians consistently come out as the most cerebral, most rational, and least emotional. On a very crude problem solving measure related to IQ, they score the highest. Libertarians, more than liberals or conservatives, have the capacity to reason their way to their ideology.

3) On relationships: Libertarians are the most individualistic; they report the weakest ties to other people. They score lowest of the three groups on many traits related to sociability, including extroversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. They have a morality that matches their sociability – one that emphasizes independence, rather than altruism or patriotism.

In other words: Libertarians, liberals, and conservatives all differ from each on dozens of psychological traits, which help to explain why people – even siblings in the same family — gravitate to different ideological positions as they grow up. Understanding these psychological differences will be crucial for politicians and political movements that want to appeal to libertarians, who are often left out as so much attention is lavished on liberals and conservatives.

62 Comments

Why then do we see Ayn Rand collected Social Security and Medicare and Ron Paul double dips Social Security and a plush government funded career? I\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\’m thinking there\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\’s another important criteria for Libertarians.

You didn’t know that Ron Paul refuses the pension and other benefits that other congressman accept…

Ron Paul has made a living for himself as a successful doctor who was beloved in his hometown for providing free medical services for the needy.

And Social Security is money TAKEN from your paycheck. There is nothing wrong with getting your own money back. Just because the system is insolvent and young people now will never get their money back from SS doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to get what’s yours.

Mark is walking home from the movie theater late at night. Two armed men in an alley threatens to hurt Mark unless he gives them his wallet. Although against his will, Mark complies under the threat of force. The armed men run away. Luckily an officer sees the whole thing and manages to catch the two men. The officer returns the wallet to Mark, saying “here are your belongings”. But Mark, who is a man of principle, rejects taking the wallet, saying “I do not support theft, and to demonstrate this I shall make no effort to retrieve what was once stolen from me!” and Mark walks away empty handed.

The analogy should be obvious; Mark represents Ayn Rand, the robbers represent the government, and the wallet represents her Social Security. For some reason, unbeknownst to me, people frequently assert that the morally consistent position is for people who object to Social Security to NOT want their money back. This line of reason is completely beyond comprehension, yet it frequents various forums from time to time. Perhaps this is another example of non-libertarians’ general inability to reason their ways to their ideologies as detailed by the study cited above.

The analogy should be obvious; Mark represents Ayn Rand, the robbers represent the government, and the wallet represents her Social Security. For some reason, unbeknownst to me, people frequently assert that the morally consistent position is for people who object to Social Security to NOT want their money back. This line of reason is completely beyond comprehension, yet it frequents various forums from time to time. Perhaps this is another example of non-libertarians’ general inability to reason their ways to their ideologies as detailed by the study cited above.

You are totally right that I got that flipped around. I made an annotation in the video to correct the error and I’m hoping I can figure out a way to replace the YouTube video with updated sound. But at least it should be clear that it was indeed switched around to listeners for now. Thanks for catching that for us.

Why then do we see Ayn Rand collected Social Security and Medicare and …”

Speaking generally, to take back some of what one has been forced by the government to pay for, does not imply an affirmation of the coercion.

What do you expect, that all opposed to compulsory Social Security should climb up on a papier-mache cross and by refusing what is legally theirs, leave more for you; thereby disguising the real costs of the system?

I actually agree with you here. But I’m assuming both you and Libertarian Dude would never, ever call Buffett hypocritical for calling for higher taxes when doing everything possible within the system to minimize his taxes under current laws, right?…

It would seem that libertarians, while not being sociopaths, are a little more like sociopaths than other groups. Just saying.

One other thing that’s interesting to me is how it fits on the parochial altruism scale. In one part of your book you mention that liberals are lower on the “binding” virtues that deliver order and a sense of group belonging. While this is true as it relates to all your research, it’s always bugged me a little. It seems to me that liberals want to construe the biggest possible team, sort of an unconstrained altruism. They crave for there to be only one team, regardless of how realistic that is.

So if there’s variance in the breadth of your altruism, then libertarians have the least breadth. Their altruism is broad when it comes to a minimal set of prerequisites that provide a civil playing field of sort, the one that provides the most basic liberty and individual rights. After that, you’re on your own.

I also wonder whether it has something to do with the aversion to free riding. Libertarians seem to have a more extreme aversion to free riding than conservatives, and liberal are almost blind to it when it comes to assigning consequences.

It all seems to relate to a variance in opinion about human nature and its potential. Liberals are the most hopeful when it comes to love and sharing, conservatives are more aware that free riding rises as constraints diminish, and libertarians are the most averse.

it is true that libertarians seem, on average, to have their “sociality” turned down a bit. That makes them (a bit) more like sociopaths and like autistic people. But only a bit, in a relative sense. It also frees them from some of the “blinding” that happens to libs and cons in their teams. (Although randian objectivists are as cultish as anyone).
In our data at YourMorals.org, we have found that conservatives are the most concerned about free riders, liberals the least, libertarians in the middle.
jon

Huh. Good to know. Thanks for clarifying. I def didn’t want to imply that libertarians ARE sociopaths, just a bit more in that general direction. It’s sort of a troubling implication that you can best overcome moral intuitions (or blinding) by being anti-social, as it were.

How good do you feel about your measurements of free riding? I ask because my sense of libertarians is that they want government to be so limited that potential free riders naturally get what they deserve. So while they are OK with people choosing to TRY to free ride and work less hard as a matter of liberty, they want to get rid of systems that potentially reward free riding, which in their ideal world would seldom if ever be rewarded.

It’s an absolutely erroneous conclusion. Sociopaths are not introverted curmudgeons. Quite the opposite, they have a tremendous sense of entitlement are socially outgoing and manipulative, tend to lie, are unreliable. People who vaunt self-reliance and a consistent ethical worldview, while being a little abrasive perhaps, are leagues from conforming the the description of sociopaths. That lies in the realm of the hucksters in the political realm who make promises they never intend to keep, need constant reinforcement, and are well know for manipulating people. In other words, politicians.

I can’t respond below so I am doing so at this level. First off, there is no need to frame my principled stance to the negative as an interlocutor to the position of libertarians being, superficially or otherwise, as similar to sociopaths as some form of attack. I gave no indication whatsoever that it was a personal attack but I do find such framing on your part as an attempt to manipulate the argument and put me on the defensive proactively rather than starting off by refuting my stance in any substantial fashion. It’s not personal effrontery I am expressing, it is a response to sloppy thinking. Further, I reject the notion that sociopathy is super-rationality taken to its most extreme. Research has indicated that sociopaths brains bear physical differences to normal brains and thus process stimuli differently. Sociopathy is not something identified along a single polar spectrum but rather along multiple indices like every other mental/emotional disorder.

I think the burden of proof is on you to satisfy the assertion that sociopaths are, in general, introverts and disagreeable. The standard DSM IV definition disagrees with you on the whole. I have a psychology background and I can see a variety of holes in this study from how the hypothesis was stated to how the survey was constructed and execute and even the basic definitions.

The very assumption that libertarianism represents a political perspective rather than an economic philosophy that is orthogonal to the political process and mode of thinking altogether demonstrates a fundamental err on the researchers approach. That is even includes Ayn Rand as representative of libertarians would have disgusted the woman herself. She despised libertarians and is more of an ultra-conservative minarchist than a libertarian. She was the Objectivist and libertarians champion subjectivity as a fundamental component of their economic philosophy.

There are left right and center libertarians. The key similarity being these various perspectives all view the state as fundamentally illegitimate due to its inherently violent nature.

As a group of people who eschew inherently violent systems, we consider ourselves far more sociable than those who engage in the political means. This might explain the conclusion of why we aren’t found to be connected to our communities because our peers and neighbors are complicit in perpetuating said violent system and many, many, many of us have encountered very aggressive reactions when we share our views on the state. We get called selfish, heartless, spoiled, and anti-social even though we are always against war, suggest charity as opposed to confiscatory redistribution, always champion voluntary association as opposed to force and ardently believe this is the basis of a just, peaceful and prosperous society. We don’t view liberty as a virtue above all others but as the foundation for virtues to flourish.

Your comment lacks accuracy. I assume you have the best motives in the world, but the clinical description of sociopathy bears no resemblance to the belief system of a libertarian. The heart of the matter is that a Libertarian has no desire to control the choices of an other individual, nor do they desire an anarchic society where they get to “do anything they want.’ Libertarians believe in basic legal institutions to protect lives and property. They believe in voluntary charitable efforts to help those less fortunate. They want society to function, but they reject state violence and social engineering as the best method to accomplish this. Sociopaths only desire the best outcome for themselves and seek to manipulate everyone around them to achieve that. They are charming and sociable and very likely to be a vocal supporter of whatever political philosophy is most appealing to the widest number of potential victims. Finally, there is enough research on the brain to know that sociopaths have a specific inactive brain system in the orbital cortex, which is then unable to act as an impulse controller in the sociopathic brain. So to say Libertarians are on a spectrum with sociopaths you are literally implying that they are brain damaged.

What are the hallmarks of a sociopath? Glibness, lying, grandiosity, shallow emotions, parasitic lifestyle. How that equals to being more introverted and less agreeable is beyond me. Sociopaths tend to be very introverted and make all attempts to appear agreeable and empathetic. You might want to re-calibrate your conclusions. The political realm absolutely attracts true sociopaths far more than the libertarian mindset.

Clearly you perceive this as an attack, Sean, and want to counter it. Sorry you feel that way.

As it turns out, there are a number of serious mental pathologies that can be seen as laying at the extreme of some spectrum.

For example, some people are obsessive compulsive and others are just more focused than others. It’s being at the extreme that turns a potentially useful trait into a pathology.

If you are focused enough that you can sit and concentrate on an intricate task without a break for 10 hours, that has value. But if your OCD means that you can’t stop washing your hands or lining up the pencils on your desk, that’s a problem. The useful trait goes too far, becomes a problem, see?

I am not implying that libertarianism is a harmful pathology because there’s a sort of a resemblance to sociopathy.

I’m noticing some small similarity because it might help lead me to further insights either about the nature of libertarianism or about sociopathy. To compare is not to conflate. IMO, it’s always OK to compare, as long as you notice BOTH the similarities AND the differences. But when people are sensitive to attack, they have a tendency to assume that your comparison is a conflation. I notice that A is similar to B in some ways, and the defenders of A attack me as though I said that A was “just like” B.

As Jon alludes to in his reply, I am following up on one of the ideas from his book where he talks about super-rational, low empathy individuals, including those that lean towards autism.

I wonder whether it’s actually true that sociopaths have a demonstrated tendency to be gregarious extroverts. It’s true of the popular image of sociopaths who are successful serial killers, like Ted Bundy. But there are some people who lack any sense of empathy and caring about others and who are socially inept and introverted. You might want to look into that generalization some more.

Libertarianism is based on The Non Aggression Principle: It is morally wrong to initiate force (violence) against innocent people for any reason.

It has nothing to do with altruism. Virtue is voluntary; it doesn’t come from the barrel of a gun or with the threat of prison.

You aren’t being altruistic if you use violence to force other people to do the “right thing”.

Virtue starts with you. Practice what you preach and put your money where your mouth is instead of voting for a political class that uses guns and prison to do your bidding for you.

Most of your tax dollars goes toward violence in some form or another, to subsidize wealthy corporations in the military and prison industrial complex. Very tiny % goes toward food stamps or “helping the poor”.

So hopefully you feel really good about all the wasted, inefficiently and corruptly managed tax dollars that are taken from you while the central banking system destroys the purchasing power of your money. The system relies on willing slaves like you.

Resources are by nature limited, so if I own three acres with a well and enough land to grow / raise a bit of food, then of course I have a right to protect that limited resource. The more you hinder this, either by taxation of what I produce, or by outright mob incursion and confiscation, the less of that production can make it into market for others to use. If you take away my title and tell me to keep producing for others, you also get a negative result, because my efforts to do so will plummet over time, as the possible rewards are absorbed by the state. Your snide little blurb is a great sounding phrase to drop into some Atlantic article about how selfish Libertarians are, but it does not jibe with the realities of the market, of land ownership or with the failed history of (non-voluntary) collectivization.

Interesting data, but lets not loose sight of the big picture. We can observe that the USA was a libertarian nation of immigrants with a preference for liberty held in common. What happen since ought not be controversial. Who would deny that libertarians make poor wives, mothers, and employees? Natural selection favors a finite number of libertarians in a nation, especially in an industrialized nation. Business leaders, religious leaders and criminals pretty much sums up those likely to procreate their love of liberty. The USA went quickly from a libertarian nation to a more caring activist nation and will likely continue to incorporate more moral foundations until they are as divided or conservative as those nations its ancestors fled. The one thing a libertarian is good for (provided he is thoughtful, social, and religious enough to have secondhand knowledge of all our moral emotions) is unbiased leadership of dynamic institutions. I wish MFT would recognize that sanctity only appears to be a binding moral foundation when combined with authority and loyalty.

If by activist you mean confiscatory and criminal. I mean seriously, libertarians are some of the most charity-minded people there are and to paint them with a brush that conflates them with criminals is utterly appalling and reckless. Simply because libertarians do not equate the monopolization of force over a given territory as a legitimate reason to take from some and give to others hardly means they are heartless criminals. Quite the contrary really.

I agree, most people in the USA with a libertarian disposition are righteous people, fair, upstanding citizens who live alone in relative poverty (I’m one) others are capable leaders. I was just pointing out that lucrative crime for those not adverse to it also offers the libertarian disposition passage through generations.

Chris, you need to re-examine your definition of libertarian, or your reading of history. The U.S. government started small, but started growing immediately. And size is not all that matters. Classical liberalism was a relevant force among the antifederalists, but hardly dominant. They arguably lost the important battles, even in their own minds at the time. How long was it before the alien and sedition act was passed? Don’t mistake the rhetoric for the reality.

i have an issue w/ the sacrifice 1 for the good of 5 mentioned in the vid. true libritarians know that it is inherent in our philosophy that the rights of an individual are equal to the rights of a group. i don’t know how the question was phrased but someone studying a group shouldn’t gloss over something so important to said group in the presentation of the findings, imho.

Yeah, I agree that it’s an excellent study, but I also noticed that the sacrifice 1 for 5 scenario didn’t seem very libertarian to me.

I took the test on the site earlier, and it did present a couple of interesting dilemmas. In one case, a train is about to run over 5 people, and you can push a button so the train switches to a different track and runs over 1 person (who would have otherwise been unharmed) instead. In the other case, a train is about to run over 5 people, and you can throw a bystander onto the tracks to make the train stop first, only killing the bystander.

Most people are more likely to say the first action is moral and the second is immoral, even though they’re logically the same. I answered “no” in both cases.

As someone who is a pragmatic libertarian, but not a doctrinaire ideologue, I found both Jon’s book in general and Ravi’s study in particular to be very interesting. I have friends and family members from a wide range of political beliefs (conservative evangelical parents, a very left/liberal/progressive sister, etc.), and they aren’t stupid and they aren’t evil. Jon’s book does a good job of getting people to take a step back from the knee-jerk moralizing and demonizing that tend to be natural reactions, and instead tries to explain why people feel the way that they do about these issues.

Personally, I found it very useful when trying to understand why my parents or my sister might care strongly about things that I consider irrelevant, and vice versa.

My one suggestion for Ravi is on the slide that says “Libertarians may be members of an ultra-social species who do not want to be ultra-social.” I suggest that if people with individualist personality traits (whether or not they self-identify as libertarians) are common, albeit in the minority, then it’s not accurate the call the human race an “ultra-social species.” It would be more accurate to say that the human species has niches for individuals with a range of preferences in terms of both social interaction and social constraints.

Many evolutionary psychology studies draw from observations of the other Great Apes — chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos, orangutangs. It’s fascinating how vastly different forms of behaviors can result from species that are very close in terms of genetics. Chimps are constantly making political alliances and playing dominance games, and a lot of people use this chimp behavior as the analogy for human behaviors. On the other hand, with the gorilla there tends to be a single dominant silverback male who dominates everything and a clear hierarchy based on who is the strength. And then we have the recently famous bonobos, with their orgies and free love for everyone, and they seem both the most egalitarian the most laid back. But the best analogy for libertarians might be the orangutans, who are highly intelligent, but also highly independent.

Orangutans live a more solitary lifestyle than the other great apes. Most social bonds occur between adult females and their dependent and weaned offspring. Adult males and independent adolescents of both sexes tend to live alone.[34] Orangutan societies are made up of resident and transient individuals of both sexes. Resident females live with their offspring in defined home ranges that overlap with those of other adult females, who may be their immediate relatives. One to several resident female home ranges are encompassed within the home range of a resident male, who is their main mating partner.[35] Transient males and females move widely.[34] Orangutans usually travel alone, but they may travel in small groups in their sub-adult years. However this behaviour ends at adulthood. The social structure of the orangutan can be best described as solitary but social. Interactions between adult females range from friendly, to avoidance to antagonistic. Resident males may have overlapping ranges and interactions between them tend to be hostile.[35]

…

Orangutans are among the most intelligent primates. Experiments suggest that they can figure out some invisible displacement problems with a representational strategy.[43] In addition, Zoo Atlanta has a touch-screen computer where their two Sumatran orangutans play games. Scientists hope that the data they collect from this will help researchers learn about socializing patterns, such as whether they mimic others or learn behaviour from trial and error, and researchers hope the data can point to new conservation strategies.[44] A 2008 study of two orangutans at the Leipzig Zoo showed that orangutans are the first non-human species documented to use ‘calculated reciprocity’ which involves weighing the costs and benefits of gift exchanges and keeping track of these over time.[45]

So maybe the conservatives got the gorilla genes, the liberals got the bonobo genes, and the libertarians got the orangutan genes. Of course, the professional politicians, who spend their days brokering deals, making alliances, and stabbing their friends in the back — those guys clearly have a lot of chimp DNA.

Meh. This isn’t so much about psychology as about defining libertarian ideology as if it’s some sort of a new discovery. “They really do put liberty above all other values.” It’s a feel good story for libertarians while placing a restrictive definition on it and simplifying it to the point that it loses the nuances and variety that makes it special. Yet another waste of taxpayer money.

I hope that you can asnwer this question. If you have already done so, please point me to that post or chapter in the book.

You write about how different groups differ with regards to notions of equality and fairness. What objective measures have you given to these concepts to ensure a universal interpretation among test subjects? It would seem that the subject’s relative definition could dramatically impact his or her response. For instance, The Inductivist looked at GSS data and determined that when asked, “Are you are good at math,” Asians responded in the negative, but where in fact the best relatively speaking. Another group, confidently asserted that they were good at math, but were in fact the worst of all measured groups. How do you account for perceptual differences which can dramatically affect answer outcome? How do you account for personality traits such as resistance to authority that will cause some people, like me, to choose the most insane exception to the point as the basis upon which to interpret your questions?

Also, how do you account for sexuality, sexual self-measure, sexual ability, and sexual activity in your reference to equality and fairness? And how are those same things measured across liberals, republicans and libertarians. If liberals are for equality, then what does that mean with regards to sexuality? Does that mean that every man should get to have sex with a beautiful woman, an equal number of times? Does that mean something similar for women? If two men are compared, then how do you determine if they are equal? Person A has sex with 50 women per year, has sired ten children, and makes only $15,000 yearly while floating in and out of jobs. He has an IQ of 90 and has the self-confidence of alpha male and is pretty happy. Person B has an IQ of 125, is married with two kids, makes $80,000 per year and has had sex with two women in his entire life, much to his complete and utter dissatisfaction. More than anything, Person B wants to copulate with a wide array of women, wants to be confident and wants to be an alpha male rather than the supplicating beta that he is. If liberals are truly for fairness and equality, then how do they account for the scenario above across the full panoply of measures which include intelligence, wealth, family foundation, number of offspring, but also include harder to measure aspects of life quality such as sexual satisfaction, mating opportunities and overall sense of self and sense of confidence?

Not to get off topic, because I want to hear your response to the above, but this issue, as a conservative libertarian, is but one of many measures by which I reject any notion that liberals are more devoted to equality and fairness. For in reality, the test makers are not accurately judging what is important in life. And nothing is more important that having sex with many beautiful women (at least in the eyes of many, many, many men) and passing on one’s genes to populate the future.

Hello, very much enjoyed the book. Just wondering if you will ever be taking a look at Communitarians. Our box on the Nolan Square just gets ignored or written off as fascist or totalitarian. I don’t feel like either of those things, so it would be nice for our existance to be aknowleged and more research done.
As might be expected from being the opposite of Libertarianism, when I took your test at yourmorals.org I scored highly across all 6 moral dimensions. Yet I was not permitted to give Communitarian, or even Centrist as an option at the time, I had to put “other”. It seems that by not letting people choose those options, or providing a test to sort them if they don’t know where they stand, you are missing out on a lot of information that you could study down the road. Seems a shame to miss that when it could so easily be corrected just by adding it to the options. Even if you don’t use it, a student might be able to.

good point. My group did once do a study where we let subtypes emerge from the data, and communitarian was one of them — high across the board, as you say. we describe it in publication # 70 on this page:http://people.stern.nyu.edu/jhaidt/publications.html
we are trying to not ignore libertarians. Clearly communitarians should not be ignored either. thanks.

There is a lot of overlap in the American definitions. For example, both sides embrace capitalism. Both sides do not believe in a totally collectivist society and both shun away from extreme state planning. Liberals may tend to be more avant garde, but conservatives do tend to follow suit…eventually (see racial segregation as an example). Conservatives do advocate for business, which is needed (to a certain extent). On social issues, conservatives don’t have the greatest track record. Conservatives aren’t all boorish, nor are all liberals snooty. These are stereotypes that have really influenced policy and are serving to do more harm than good. I’m liberal, but many of my friends are neocons. I try to base my opinions on studies and facts, so does he. He works in finance, I’m in education. I’m more concerned with social wellbeing, whereas he is concerned with generating wealth. We usually end up stating that the two aren’t mutually exclusive. These things are human constructs. So rather than look at the ideology when determining if a policy is good or bad, find out the data and facts behind the policy.

According to Carey’s collection, conservatives hold that shared values, morals, standards, and traditions are necessary for social order while libertarians consider individual liberty to be the highest value.

Though they disagree on specifics: authoritarians, conservatives, and liberals all expect government to “protect” people by forcing consenting adults to avoid risky, dangerous and foolish behavior that does not harm or endanger others. Libertarians believe that government’s role is to preserve personal and economic freedom — including those of “minorties” — and that government-provided “protection” should only include defense against foreign enemies, holding people who cause harm accountable, and providing for general order.

Who is better informed about the policy choices facing the country—liberals, conservatives or libertarians? According to a Zogby International survey that I write about in the May issue of Econ Journal Watch, the answer is unequivocal: The left flunks Econ 101.

While I'd like to offer definitions of both positions == both libertarian and social conservative == doing so would immediately embroil this post in debates I would like it to avoid. In any event, I don't have an exhaustive definition of either term, and descriptions of social conservatism, like this one are worse than useless. Rather, I would like to suggest one point, only one, on which libertarians and social conservatives differ. They may differ in other respects, but this one difference can explain much or all of the variance between the two positions.

The number of libertarians has nothing to do with being right. The fact is, it is the very system that conservatives espouse that caused this mess in the first place. Unless you're a banker and/or on Wall Street, you are getting screwed. Time to wake up.

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That means that everyone is interested in education to secure the skills and competencies required to flourish in the competitive world of work. So, Tocqueville marveled, literacy is more or less universal in America. And we conservatives don’t deny for a moment the justice of this practical orientation; everyone really does have the personal responsibility to work effectively to secure himself and his (or her) family. So we agree with the libertarians that we should be concerned when our educational system fails to help people acquire the skills they need to find a productive place in the competitive marketplace that is a free economy.

One of many notable findings from the recently released American Values Survey is the extent to which libertarians – who comprise seven percent of the American public – exhibit a unique political profile that on some issues is closer to self-identified liberals (20 percent of the public) and on others is more aligned with self-identified conservatives (32 percent of the public).

Perhaps more interesting are the average number of points allocated by liberals, conservatives, moderates, and libertarians to each of these traits. There is actually a great deal of consensus as to what is important (clean air/water, safety, job opportunities, medical care) even as there are differences (public transportation, family friendly, religiosity). Also interesting is to note aspects of cities for which libertarians score highest (not too noisy, scientific community, many atheists), which dovetails well with our other research on libertarians .

As noted above, liberals are more likely to adhere to evolutionary belief than conservatives. A study conducted by the Australian National University, revealed that belief in evolution is associated with moral permissiveness.

Libertarians may be a member of an ultrasocial species who do not want to be ultra-social.

No, no, no. We like being social! It’s this ambiguous word, “ultrasocial”, which can be read to include extremely asocial–even destructive–behavior. Libertarians typically don’t like asocial, destructive, and harmful behavior when it’s done to another person.

I’m not sure I agree that libertarians are less ideological, or more rational. I know a lot of irrational libertarians. It is easy to appear rational when you exclude all factors, and focus solely on liberty. It is easy, indeed, to appear rational and smart on a test when you do so. Nothing looks smarter than easy solutions based on simplified assumptions about life. Libertarianism feels to me like the political equivalent of assuming away general relativity because Newtonian gravity works well for you personally in a very small frame of reference. To me there is nothing rational, within the context of human society, about fully excluding either conservative values such as loyalty or sanctity or authority, or liberal values such as fairness/equality. But maybe that’s just because I think of myself as being fairly rational, and I try to focus on all of them. To me liberty is an important value, perhaps the most important, but it like all values has to be balanced against others. I find a hyperfocus on that value to the exclusion of all others to be far too facile.

I find it strange that it seems to be promoting shallow stereotypes of what people believe libertarianism is rather than providing any meaningful insight….

In fact I find this ‘study’ to stink a bit of propaganda….

Libertarianism is based on the Non Aggression Principle: The Initiation of Force (Violence) against Innocent People is ALWAYS immoral for any reason.

Liberty is not a value rather it is a NECESSITY for a moral society because the obstruction to freedom requires VIOLENCE.

The authority of the state relies on the use of violence to enforce its laws.

Libertarians oppose force: physical violence, theft, fraud, coercion and other forms of violation, whether the crimes be done by an individual or a government or men in uniforms. Violence is violence and the outcomes of a violent society are worse for its most vulnerable and disadvantaged members.

The reason why Libertarians have the highest IQ, are less “moral”, less emotional and more individualistic is because a lot of them are NT (intuitive thinkers )personality types (according to mbti). Rationals or NTs are smartest, less emotional and truth seeking people that think for them selfs and they usually dislike authority and love freedom.